The rising Blue Moon on Sunday night was lighting up the mountain ridges while the river valley remained in deep shadow. Venus and Jupiter are the two bright stars setting behind Bristol Head. Lens: Panasonic Leica 12mm f/1.4 + Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.
The first full moon of May, known as the "Flower Moon", occurred on 01 May. This year there was a second full moon in May. It happened at 2:45 am MDT on 31 May (today), and could be seen rising on the evening of 30 May (last night). The second full moon of the month is known (by one definition) as a "Blue Moon". The Moon reaches apogee (farthest from Earth) about 18 hours later, so this full moon is also called a "Micro Moon".
These images were obtained with a Sightron infini D50 refractor on 30 May. Official moonrise was 8:20 pm MDT, but the low arc traced by the Moon means that it didn't begin to peek through the trees above Snowshoe Mountain until about 1 hour 50 minutes later.
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| anticipation.... |
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| almost... |
The Evening Star (Venus) and False Evening Star (Jupiter) shine brightly over Bristol Head during twilight:
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| Panasonic Leica 25mm + sparkle filter |
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| Rokinon 135mm f/2 |
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| Sightron infini D50 + 1.5x MDB |
Last night the 9.0-day moon was just past first quarter and lighting up the landscape during twilight. The Sightron infini D50 refractor (540 mm focal length) was used to capture this image:
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| Jupiter (UL) and Venus (LR) over Bristol Head |
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| Auriga setting over Bristol Head. Vivitar 90mm + softon filter |
The 2.6-day crescent moon was 2-1/2 deg from Venus as they set over Bristol Head on Monday night.
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| 150 mm, ISO 400, 1-sec exposure. |
I woke up at 4:30 am and saw that the sky was clear when I looked out the window. The new 7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8 fisheye lens was already mounted on the Olympus E-M1iii camera, so that got used to take a couple quick pictures. I was still half asleep and didn't notice that the lens aperture was stopped down to f/4. Also, astronomical twilight was already underway, so the sky was getting brighter and bluer. Too bad I didn't wake up an hour earlier.
This is a preview of the Milky Way near midnight in late July or mid August, when the sky will be darker.
I was outside in the front yard at 11:30 pm on Friday night to do what I thought would be a few quick shots to test a new fisheye lens (7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8 II). The first exposure showed a red glow on the northern horizon, so I ended up doing many iterations and eventually moved out onto the road to get a better perspective.
The red auroral glow reached up to about 8° above the horizon. That would put it overhead somewhere in Canada, over a 1000 mi to the north. The sky brightness was measured as 21.65 mpsas, somewhat brighter than previous nights, but still very dark. There seemed to be more green airglow this night, which contributed to the increased brightness.
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| Meteor and auroral glow |
The curved horizon is caused by the distortion of the fisheye lens. On the right, the northern Milky Way is rising over Snowshoe Mountain and gradually blending in to the pink auroral glow to the left side of the frame. There were also clouds floating around, some silhouetted against the aurora and Milky Way, and some lighter ones overhead.
A digital 3x3 median filter was also applied to these images to eliminate the distraction of the fainter stars:
